Oliver Stone's movie JFK, which so badly mangled the evidence about the Kennedy assassination, did have one positive result: the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board.

Charged with overseeing the release of records relating to the assassination, the board has proceeded to pressure government agencies, and cojole private citizens, to make public documents, films, and other materials related to the assassination.

This page is devoted to the testimony offered to the ARRB. It ranges the gamit, from sensible suggestions offered by authors like Richard Trask and Priscilla McMillan, to seemingly dull but absolutely essential information offered by archivist Steve Tilley, to crackpots demanding the release of materials that they claim the federal government holds, but which in fact never existed.

Detailed Accounts of ARRB Document Releases -- A detailed chronicle of document releases have been done by Joe Backes, and has appeared regularly on John Kelin's Fair Play web site. The documents, of course, have been released in batches.

An interesting account of one batch of released documents, written by Board member Anna Nelson, is found on the web site of the Organization of American Historians.
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Introduction

The Assassination Records Review Board is an
independent federal agency created to oversee the
identification and release of records related to the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Review Board was established by the President
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection act
of 1992 (PL 102-526), and was signed into law by
George Bush. The five members of the Board were
appointed by President Clinton, confirmed by the
United States Senate, and sworn in on April 11, 1994.

The law gives the Assassination Records Review
Board the mandate and the authority to identify,
secure, and make available all records related to the
assassination of President Kennedy.

The board has until October 1, 1996 to fulfill
its mandate, plus an additional year at the Board's
discretion to complete its responsibilities.

The Review Board Members

The Honorable John R. Tunheim; Chair; United States
District Court Judge; District of Minnesota.

Dr. Kermit L. Hall; Dean, College of Humanities, and
Professor of History and Law at The Ohio State
University.

Dr. William L. Joyce; Associate University Librarian
for Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton
University.

Dr. Anna K. Nelson; Adjunct Professor of History at
The American University.

The Law

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination
Records Collection Act was enacted by the Congress and
signed into law by President George Bush on October
26, 1992. The law states, "All government records
concerning the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate
disclosure."

The law mandates that all assassination-related
materials be house in a single collection in the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The Act defines five categories of information
for which disclosure may be postponed, including
national security, intelligence gathering, and
privacy--provided there is "clear and convincing
evidence" of some harm which outweighs public
disclosure.

The law requires all federal agencies to make an
initial assessment of whether they possess records
relating to the assassination. The agencies
themselves will conduct an initial review to determine
whether their records may be disclosed immediately, or
whether disclosure should be postponed. They agencies
must then give all records that are not disclosed to
the Review Board. The Review Board will then evaluate
all agency decisions to postpone the release of
records. Once the Board completes its review of an
agency's recommendation for postponement, all records,
including those that have a postponed release date,
will be transferred to NARA. The Act requires that
all assassination records must be opened by 2017, with
the exception of records certified for continued
postponement by the President.

Authority of the Assassination Records Review Board

The Senate report of the President John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records Collection act of 1992
stated that "the underlying principles guiding the
legislation are independence, public confidence,
efficiency, and cost effectiveness." In order to
achieve these objectives, the Act gave the board the
specific powers to:

Background and Need for the Law

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy
was assassinated while traveling in a motorcade in
Dallas, Texas. His tragic death, and the subsequent
murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the president's alleged
assassin, led to the creation of the Warren
Commission, seven days after the assassination.

Amid continuing public doubts that all of the
facts surrounding the assassination had not come to
light, the House of Representatives established the
House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976 to
reopen the investigation.

In addition to these two major federal
investigations devoted to the investigation of the
assassination of President Kennedy, three other
federal investigatory bodies have dealt with the
assassination to some degree. President Ford created
The Rockefeller Commission in 1975 to investigate
Central Intelligence Agency activities within the
United states. Part of the Commission's efforts
related to the Kennedy assassination. Also in 1975,
Congress created the Senate Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities (the Church Committee) and the House Select
Committee on Intelligence (the Pike Committee). Some
of the work of these committees was related to the
assassination.

Despite these official investigations, and with
private researchers continuing their efforts, the
public was not satisfied that all of their questions
about the assassination of President Kennedy had been
answered. The result was the passage of The President
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act
of 1992, which included the creation of the
Assassination Records Review Board.

Accomplishments of the Review Board

Through October, 1996, the Review Board had acted
to transfer nearly 10,000 to the National Archives and
Records Administration for inclusion in the JFK
Collection. At the end of 1996, that collection
totaled approximately 3.1 million pages.

Government Records Related to the Assassination -- By the end of
1997, the Review board will have
reviewed and processed nearly all of the assassination
records that have been identified by federal agencies,
with the important exceptions of the FBI and CIA. The
overwhelming majority of previously redacted
information will have been made public.

These Records Include:

- Thousands of CIA documents on Lee Harvey
Oswald and the assassination of President Kennedy that
make up the CIA's Oswald File

- Thousands of once-secret records from the
investigation of the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, including the controversial Staff
Report on Oswald and Mexico City.

- Thousands of records from the FBI's core and
related assassination files

Private and Local Records -- The Board has
identified and secured significant assassination-related records in the hands of private citizens and
local government, including copies of the official
records of District Attorney Jim Garrison's
investigation of the assassination, the personal
papers of Warren Commission Chief Counsel J. Lee
Rankin, as well as long-lost films taken in Dallas on
November 22, 1963 that the public had never seen.

The Job Ahead

Sequestered Collections -- Additional time will
permit the Board to complete its review of the huge
and critically important collections of records at the
CIA and FBI that were requested by the HSCA in the
course of their investigation.

The Records of Some Agencies and Congressional
Committees -- Additional time will allow the Board to
finish its work with several agencies and
Congressional committees (NSA, Secret Service, Senate
Intelligence Committee).

Search for Additional Records -- Additional time
will permit the Board's search for additional records
held by government agencies, private individuals, and
local governments to be concluded with greater
confidence. Some of these records have been
identified, but not yet acquired by the Board.

Foreign Records -- The Board has started the
process of collecting and reviewing records held by a
number of foreign countries (Russia, Belarus, Mexico,
England, Germany, France, Japan. Cuba). Contact has
been made with several countries. Additional time
will increase the likelihood of success.